A client list to die for

Quick, guess the nationality of the lawyer who will defend Saddam Hussein. Yup, it’s a Frenchman, and not just any Frenchman, but Jacques Verges, who has also defended Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and Carlos the Jackal, and is said to have been a friend of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader behind Cambodia’s genocide. In fact, Khieu Samphan, a former Khmer Rouge leader, says he has picked Verges to defend him at a proposed genocde trial.
The BBC story that I’ve linked to above says that Verges is a “champion of extremists from both left and right, defending Palestinian violence but also neo-Nazis.” (emphasis added) The irony here is that the BBC sees irony (or tension) in the same lawyer defending Palestinians and neo-Nazis. There is none. Verges, who is also a Communist, has his act and his ideology together. He is the perfect lawyer for Saddam.